Beware the grey goo

BRITAIN collectively gasped this week at the potential horrors of the "grey goo" about to engulf the country - and even the planet. For the uninitiated, grey goo is made up of millions of self-replicating nanomachines that breed rapidly and lay waste to everything in their path, like a swarm of artificial, flesh-eating locusts. What triggered this descent into panic? The answer is quintessentially British.

It all began some weeks ago when Prince Charles asked the Royal Society for the names of people who could inform him about nanotechnology. Upon learning of this exchange, a tabloid newspaper splashed a story that the prince, who is a well-known environmentalist, is deeply worried about the impact of nanotechnology. But why? What hazards does nanotechnology present? Enter the grey goo.

Self-replicating nanobots came into being in the mind of Eric Drexler who, in his 1986 book Engines of Creation, outlined a new field ...

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